A Heartfelt Letter from our Founder and Executive Director – I Need Your Help

Dear Licensed or Potential Foster Families,

Can I be honest with you for a minute?

I have a doctorate in social work. I have spent decades now in child welfare. And I am a three-time adoptive parent who has raised what I lovingly call my free-range young adults… humans who are now out in the world, building their own beautiful, complicated, joyful lives. My family is full of love and noise and the particular kind of happiness that only comes from having done the hard, messy, worthwhile work of raising people. 

So when I tell you what I am about to tell you, I am telling you as someone who has lived it… not just studied it. 

We have children waiting for families right now. Today. And I need your help.

Here is what is breaking my heart: these children have been put under a microscope. They have diagnoses stacked on top of diagnoses. They have IEPs (Individual Education Plans). Their files read like case studies rather than like the kids they actually are – funny, resilient, complicated, worthy kids who have simply had harder starts than most. And when prospective families see those files, they sometimes get scared off.

But here is what I want to ask you, as gently and as directly as I can:

If someone put you under a microscope – your anxiety, your worst moments, your hardest seasons, your most embarrassing chapters – would you be easy to adopt? Would I? I can tell you with absolute certainty that I would not.

None of us would.

Children are not easy. Humans are not easy. Parenting is not easy. I raised my own children and I can promise you that easy was never on the table – and it was also never the point. The point was love. Commitment. Building a family. Showing up on the hard days, especially.

The children we are working to place are not easy. I will not pretend otherwise. But they are kids. Real, whole, extraordinary kids who deserve someone willing to see past the diagnosis and into the person.

If you are a licensed foster parent and you have ever thought about adoption (70% of the individuals in our database have the goal of adoption), if it has crossed your mind even once, even quietly – I am asking you to let us have that conversation with you. Not a sales pitch. A real conversation. You have already said yes to fostering, which means you already know something most people don’t: that love is not about convenience and love is not easy. It is about showing up.

We are here to help you figure out whether adoption is your next yes. We are working with children who are waiting and we will walk you through every step. We will be honest with you about the children we are trying to place and what they need. And help will be there long after the placement happens, because this work does not end at placement.

If you are looking for fulfillment – for a family built with intention and purpose – this is a real, concrete, available way to do that. Right now. For a child who is waiting today.

If you have a foster care license  and would like to join our Adoption Listing Service Program, contracted through the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), to be considered for children and teens we work with going forward, please complete this form. This form will take you about 20 minutes to complete and will give us all of the information needed to properly match you with a child or teen as a place to start. 

With honesty and hope,

Dr. Susan A. McConnell

Founder & Executive Director, Let It Be Us

susanmcconnell@letitbeus.org

(847) 528-2044

www.letitbeus.org

P.S. If you know another licensed foster family who might be ready for this conversation, please forward this to them. These children need us to cast a wide net.